by J D Huffman
“But, Doctor… what if I’m right? What if they really are following me?”
On his way home from the session, he thought about the fact that she had no answer to that question. She couldn’t even entertain it. She just assumes I’m nuts. Anyone I go to will probably think the same way. I’m totally on my own. If I try to talk to Meghan about it, she’ll tell me she’s in over her head and this is what I have a counselor for. She would be right, if I was really crazy. But I’m not. I know I’m not. I lost part of my memory. I didn’t lose my mind. I went too far when I said “they” might have bought her. I know they didn’t. They didn’t pay off Meghan, either. The only problem is, I don’t know who they might have bought off. Could it be people at work? Are they being paid to watch me? Who can I trust?
Devon’s thoughts raced with all the possibilities as his new car drove him home. The loaner had been replaced a few days ago with the latest model of his old car, so the computer voice was back to something he found more accustomed. The features were fewer, too, which he didn’t mind. He wasn’t the type to demand all the bells and whistles, as the old cliche went. Too bad these things don’t come with a “lose the car that’s following me” mode. That’d be handy. Of course, he could always do the driving himself, but he was never a very good manual driver, and deactivating the autodrive on public roads caused numerous alerts to pop up about rising insurance rates, potential legal liability, and even the possibility that manual operation was illegal in his present location. It just wasn’t worth the headache, at least not yet.
On his way home, he didn’t see the gray car, and somehow that only made him more nervous about it. To see it everywhere and then abruptly not see it made him suspect it was already waiting for him somewhere else. And what if it’s waiting at home for me?
“Take me to work,” Devon ordered the vehicle’s computer.
“It is currently Saturday. Are you sure?” the computer helpfully asked to confirm.
“Yes. Do it.”
So, it drove him to his office. I’ll call Meghan when I get there and tell her I’m doing some extra work. She’ll understand. I wonder if I can ask about the gray car without her getting all worried or upset. He walked up to the rear entrance where a thumbprint reader gave him access. He looked up at the camera before he entered, wondering how his presence on the weekend would be received if anyone bothered to check the security footage. I can say I’ve got work to catch up on. That’s not exactly a lie. I was out for over a week. I’m sure other people have picked up the slack but I feel bad about my coworkers being forced to do that. I need to make up some of the lost time. If they’re waiting for me at home, then they won’t find me here, and I can get away from them for a while.
He took the elevator to the third floor and to his office. It wasn’t really an “office” in any traditional sense, though. Everyone worked at tables which had only small dividers that came up a few inches indicating individual workspaces. They offered no privacy at all, and were supposed to encourage collaboration, but in reality just made for constant distractions. These were supposed to be better than the allegedly dehumanizing, semi-enclosed cubicles that preceded them.
He pulled his swivel chair out from under the table and plopped down in it, peering at the computer display that covered the wall in front of him. It automatically activated upon sensing his presence and brought up everything he’d been working on from the day before. His latest project was to develop an attack detection and prevention mechanism. Such projects always amounted to an arms race—the moment SINAI deployed new attack mitigation techniques, malicious individuals would probe for, locate, and exploit weaknesses. He imagined it being a bit like designing a bank vault. Each time you built and secured the vault, robbers would find a way to tunnel inside. You make it bigger, stronger, tougher, and they figure out yet another means to obtain entry. He envisioned the vaults themselves growing ever larger and more complex and the criminals intent on violating them using unwieldy, impossible tools to break in. In reality, of course, bank vaults stopped existing as a practical matter a long time ago, what with money having become almost entirely electronic in nature. He knew about the vaults from the films of his childhood—the ones about complicated bank heists were always his favorites. He enjoyed the way they tended to represent puzzles, the way programming often did. The characters in a heist film had to solve the problem of breaking into the vault, getting the money, and getting away undetected. He appreciated the way they hatched complicated plans, which seemed so perfect on paper, and then fell apart once they tried to execute them. In a film, of course, that was how the drama happened—a perfect heist wasn’t going to be interesting to watch. When it came to his work projects, however, drama was the last thing he wanted. He always liked to get things right the first time, and truly, “no news is good news” made for a perfect mantra. If he deployed a new firmware version to all their customers’ routers and no one said anything, it meant one of two things: either everything worked flawlessly, or he’d inadvertently crashed the entire network so hard it couldn’t even report that it was down. Fortunately, the latter had never happened to him. He sincerely hoped it never would.
He realized he’d been staring blankly at his display for several minutes, reminiscing about heist movies. He chalked it up to the tranquilizers. Damn things fog my brain and zone me out. Maybe I should just stop taking them. They don’t seem to be doing me any good. He decided he’d give them another few days to determine if they would help. If they didn’t, he’d just as soon stop using them.
It was the middle of the day, but the pills had left him more than a little fatigued, so he stepped away from his workspace and retreated to the break room for coffee. It was a short walk, maybe forty paces. He carried his coffee mug—a gift from Meghan—and placed it on the counter while he yawned and poured himself a cup. If he hadn’t been so tired, he might have wondered why there was a fresh pot of coffee when no one else appeared to be in the office.
“That’s decaf,” a voice behind him said. Devon startled so intensely he nearly threw the pot across the room.
“Should I even turn around?” Devon asked fearfully. “Or are you going to shoot me before I do?”
The other voice let out a laugh. “I’m not here to kill you, Mr. Engels. You can turn around.”
He did so. A man in a dark blue suit stood before him, black hair buzzed so short his scalp was nearly shorn. Despite the laugh, his face was serious, well-defined, with prominent bones and sunken eyes. He was tall and thin, almost towering over Devon. “Who are you?” was the obvious question.
“Not your enemy,” the man promised. “A complex series of events has led me here, and as it turns out, I need your help. We need your help.”
Devon raised an eyebrow. “’We?’ And you’re the one who has been following me, aren’t you?”
The man nodded. “I work for an organization. It’s not one you’ve ever heard of. Before I continue, you may wish to sit down.” The man gestured toward the small table in the corner of the break room, around which a few chairs were arranged.
Devon nodded and pulled out one of the seats, putting himself in it. The stranger did the same, sitting across from him. “I assume you’re familiar with the idea of fantasy creatures? Trolls, goblins, faeries, elves, and so forth?”
Devon shrugged. “Yeah, I’ve played Monsters and Mages. I’ve read my share of Tolkien and all that. Big deal.”
The man shook his head. “I’m not talking about games and books. I’m talking about real life.”
He scowled. “Don’t come in here and bullshit me. I have enough problems without you trying to pull some kind of prank. Who put you up to this? One of my coworkers? Did Gene think this shit would be funny?”
“Devon,” the man said softly, leaning closer. “I’m not trying to deceive you or play a prank on you. The reason you have no memory of your car accident is because we—the people I w
ork for and with—erased it. We erased it because you saw something you shouldn’t have. A werewolf—those are real, too—lost control and killed a family. He attempted to cover it up and proceed with his life as if nothing had happened. When he realized we were close to apprehending him, he led us on a chase and caused the massive accident you were involved in. But you weren’t hurt, at least not badly. You left your vehicle and came upon a couple of other agents who were trying to clean up the scene. You saw the werewolf’s corpse. You saw something that uninvolved humans like yourself are never meant to see. The bottom line, Devon, is that there are two worlds: the world you see around you, a world you might call a comforting lie; and then there’s the real world, the one in which monsters exist, and the only thing holding them back are people like me.”
Devon took a sip of his coffee, silent. He still wasn’t sure if he believed any of this but he was willing to listen to the story. He must want something if he’s come here to tell me about why my memory was “erased.”
“It is a common procedure for us to erase the memories of people who inadvertently witness what we do our best to hide. We did the same for you, and thought that would be the end of it. As is our policy, we monitored you during your recovery in the hospital as well as once you returned home. We were disturbed to see that you were doing tremendous amounts of research into autodrive systems and the accident which you were told caused your injuries and memory loss.”
Devon interrupted him right there. “Are you saying your people hurt me? Caused me to have my spleen taken out, my bruised ribs, all that?”
The man shrugged. “We had to make your injuries look legitimate. I promise you that your life was never in danger. We’re very precise about these things. It would do us no good to have someone die mysteriously around us, don’t you think?”
Devon leaned back and folded his arms, not particularly pleased with the explanation he’d been given. “You tell me. Go on, what happened next? Get to your point.”
“My supervisor asked me to investigate as much as I could about your life to determine if you’d ever had an Encounter before. That’s what we call them, you see—Encounters. As far as we could tell, you hadn’t. We had no records of you. Your employers, on the other hand… once we found out you worked for SINAI Systems, we dug a bit deeper. You wouldn’t know this, but several employees of SINAI have not been human. They were placed by our organization, according to our records. What our records do not say is why. We also have no record of who runs the company.”
“What do you mean? It has a board. It’s privately-held, but there’s a CEO, EVP, all the C-level executives you’d normally expect.” Devon pointed to the far wall, near the door, where several framed photographs were hung—middle-aged men and women, smiling and formally dressed with light blue backgrounds probably meant to emulate clouds. Dull but typical corporate headshots.
The man glanced at the photos, then back to Devon. “Have you ever met any of them, Devon?”
“Well, no. It’s a big company. I hear every now and then that they’re visiting this office but they never make it to my floor. They’re busy people.”
“You never see them because they don’t exist,” the man explained. “Their names are fake. All identification records we can find on them have been forged. Whoever they are, they are not of this world—they are like ghosts. Ghosts not being real, of course, the only alternative is that they are from someplace else, a world we call Avalon.”
“What, like the legend? Isn’t that where King Arthur’s knights went when they died?”
“Not exactly. Much was lost in translation, as you might imagine.”
“But there’s a parallel universe where all these… fantasy creatures come from?”
“It’s not exactly a parallel universe,” he corrected. “Think of it more as a universe encapsulated within ours. Have you ever made a bubble that had other bubbles inside it? If you imagine our universe as the outer bubble, then Avalon is an inner bubble. There is a barrier between our universe and theirs, but some have the knowledge and power to traverse it. Avalon is, we hear, a somewhat chaotic realm. Creatures flee to Earth for safety, to start new lives, and we help them. They agree to numerous rules, the most important of them being that they never reveal themselves to other humans—people like you. Crimes, of course, are especially serious breaches, as the involvement of civilian authorities always runs the risk of exposing their true identities. This is why we monitor all Avalonians on Earth, so if any of them do step out of line, we can apprehend them before the police do. In the case of your Encounter, the situation went… somewhat out of control.”
“No kidding,” Devon scoffed. “It caused a huge accident that’s not even supposed to be possible.”
“Indeed. Mr. Bellfort—the werewolf whose body you saw—was not intelligent enough to have disabled the autodrive system himself. He had to have had help. It is unclear if that’s related to the murders he committed. It’s entirely possible those were nothing but a personal failing on his part.”
“That’s a weird way to talk about killing a family.”
“It’s a weird world, Mr. Engels. Weirder than you’ve yet realized.”
“So, I’ve sat here and listened to all this, and you’ve made it clear you can wipe people’s memories at will, and I’m going to assume you didn’t come here to tell me all this just so you can wipe it again. You want something from me.”
The man gave a slow, knowing nod. “I do, indeed. I’ve come to you because, to be honest, I feel I can no longer trust my superiors. My supervisor is a well-meaning fellow, but he’s been advised to back off of SINAI. He told me to let the matter drop. I can’t do that. This is a company where several Avalonians have been assigned to work, with a leadership circle that apparently doesn’t exist, and the top levels of my organization see nothing worth investigating? You can imagine how suspicious that seems.”
“You want me to spy on my own bosses for you?” Devon balked. “You’re out of your mind.”
“No, Devon. You’re out of your mind, remember? You’ll do as I tell you, or a few well-placed communiques will have you bouncing around the inside of rubber-walled room.”
“I hear they don’t use those anymore,” Devon quipped, remembering the discussion with his counselor.
“This is not a laughing matter. I have no doubt that SINAI is engaged in something deeply dangerous, and either my employers are aware of it and want to see it go forward, or they are afraid of becoming involved for fear of SINAI’s reprisal. I find both possibilities alarming. You have high-level access to SINAI’s network, its software, its equipment. You help program it, after all. That access is essential. I need you to find out what they’re doing. Find out who the executives really are, if you can. But the important part is discovering what they’re up to. The company’s financials are not open, but by analyzing the available data on what SINAI purchases and appears to sell, this is a company with tremendous resources. Documented contracts, sales reports, and budgets all tell the same story. This company is loaded, yet they aren’t expanding at the rate you would expect of a company so flush with money. That tells me the money is being spent on something else—something not public. It could be something harmless, like secretive research into next-generation products. But with everything else I know—or rather don’t know—I consider that possibility very unlikely.”
Devon had a hard time taking it all in. What am I supposed to do about all this? I’m not a spy. What does he think I can learn? If I abuse my access to company resources, someone’s surely going to notice and I’ll get fired. I can’t lose my job. No one’s going to hire the crazy guy from that big accident. And if I get fired, I’ll be useless to this guy and he might make my life hell anyway. What the fuck am I going to do?? Devon vocalized the last part in a more tactful way. “What if I can’t find any proof they’re up to anything strange?”
“Then that ha
d best be the result of a thorough investigation on your part. Anything less, and there will be consequences for you,” he said menacingly. “I’m sure you know that if you tell anyone about this, they’ll consider you insane. You’ll lose your job and possibly be institutionalized. I suggest you not tell your wife, either. I’ve already explained how we deal with Encounters. Removing memories of a specific place, time, and sequence of events is easy. Removing information imparted verbally is more difficult, and tends to have more… side effects.”
Devon didn’t like the sound of that at all. It was a threat and he knew it. He gritted his teeth, almost coming out of the chair. “Don’t threaten my wife, you prick.”
“Don’t give me a reason to,” he said with an icy stare. “I may be undertaking this investigation without official blessing, but I still have plenty of resources at my disposal, and I will use them to ensure you do as you’re told, or you and those close to you will suffer the consequences. I hope I’ve made myself understood.”
Devon grudgingly nodded, not looking up as the man stood and made for the doorway. He paused there, straightened his suit, and glanced toward Devon. “I’ll contact you in a week. You’d better have something for me.” Then, he was gone.
What the fuck am I going to do?
Chapter 17
Leadership
It took William several moments to determine why he wasn’t in a hospital room or Devon’s bed—or waking up on Devon’s couch, for that matter. He heard someone calling “William!” but didn’t register it as his own name for some time. When he fell into those dreams of another place, time, and life, he became fully absorbed, lived that existence as if it was his own. It felt strange to him that he might consider Meghan his own wife, and yet he could also remember how she and Devon met, at a mixer for his previous employer where he worked in the engineering department and she answered the support phones. He remembered something about her working in a logistics position after that, with highly variable shifts. She had to ensure medical supplies made it from one place to another in a timely manner. William asked himself why those self-driving cars couldn’t do it all by themselves. Maybe I can find out next time I have a dream about Devon. Of course, dreams being dreams, he never thought of questions like that until he woke up and had time to reflect. But then, he also knew they weren’t just dreams. He’d met Devon, or at least thought he did, back on Cainin. It seemed like an impossible encounter, and Devon didn’t explain in detail. There hadn’t been time. But that brief meeting stuck with William, giving him so many more questions than answers, and the dreams had the same effect. At some point, he assumed the dreams would begin to align with reality, and perhaps he would see how Devon was still alive after what must have been many, many lifetimes. He’d pieced together, after all, that Devon was from Earth—the source of all human life, from which humans fled millennia ago, settling places like Lexin.